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252 "I can't exactly tell you, Prince. But, according to what the Countess has let slip about it, it was a scandal of the very grossest description—we agreed just now that there are generally no limits in that direction."

"And then he went to America?"

"You're right there, Prince. I can't help admiring your 'cuteness."

"Please go on, Miss Spoelmann. I've never heard anything like the Countess's story."

"No more had I; so you can imagine what an impression it made on me when she came to us. Well, then, Count Löwenjoul bolted to America with the police at his heels, leaving pretty considerable debts behind of course. And the Countess went with him."

"She went with him? Why?"

"Because she still loved him, in spite of everything—she loves him still—and because she was determined to share his life whatever happened. He took her with him, though, because he had a better chance of getting help from her relations as long as she was with him. The relations sent him one further instalment of money from home, and then stopped—they finally buttoned up their pockets; and when Count Löwenjoul saw that his wife was no more use to him, he just left her—left her in absolute destitution and cleared out."

"I knew it," said Klaus Heinrich, "I expected as much. Just what does happen."

But Imma Spoelmann went on: "So there she was, destitute and helpless, and, since she had never learned to earn her own living, she was left alone to face want and hunger. And you must remember that fife in the States is much harder and meaner than here in your country; also that the Countess has always been a gentle, sensitive creature, and has been cruelly treated for years. In a word, she was no fit subject for the impressions of life to which